A Yu-Gi-Oh! Horror Survival Game
by RayeMoon
Summary: Yugi & friends start a new Survival Horror Game, but maybe it's not just a game. My 5th "Annual" Horror Story, even though I haven't finished the 4th one yet. Meant to start Oct 31st, but you all know I'm terrible with time. Note: This is based on Stay Alive! a freaking dumb movie, but interesting premise. My only similarities are that basic premise. I make no money.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One:

"Are you sure about this, Joey?" Yugi asked doubtfully as he looked down again at the cover of the new videogame Joey and Tristan had brought over. It was a survival horror, certainly not something Yugi generally enjoyed.

"Yeah, come on, pal, why not?"

"It looks like fun," Tristan added.

Yugi doubted that, at least for himself. The cover of the game, titled simply Survive [Beta], had a picture of three computer-generated people on the front, running towards the viewer, but looking over their shoulders at something unseen. They appeared to be in some wooded area, but just visible in the far background was what looked like a house or a church in an America style. As expected, the name of the game was done in spiky red letters that appeared to be dripping blood. Yugi turned it over, but saw no summary text, platform information, or credits.

"You said this came in the mail as a tester?"

"Yeah, Yug', don't you remember? You got one, too. They're looking for gamers to test it, that's why it's in beta, and give them some feedback. We got advertisements in the mail asking us to reply back if we were interested and I did."

Yugi frowned slightly, trying to remember. "But they hire people for that, not solicit them."

Joey laughed, taking the game from Yugi. "This way they get their feedback for free. But we get to say we played it first, if it's popular. They said something about free merchandise, too, once we submit the feedback. Come on, Yug', give it a try with Tristan and me."

"And what about me?" Tea asked.

"Oh," Joey said, sounding genuinely surprised. "Erm, you want to try it? I didn't think it'd be your thing."

"Like it's Yugi's?" Tea made a 'gimme' gesture with one hand. "Come on, let me try."

"Well, sure, happy to have ya."

"That makes four of us," Yugi pointed out. "What are we going to do, take turns?"

"Nope." Tristan held out a big box. "They gave us these special controllers and headsets. They're wireless or something to your console. Says as long as they're on, you can have as many players as controllers. They gave us six."

"They just sent six controllers and headsets in the mail?" Tea asked. "That sounds risky. People could steal them."

"Well, they're supposed to only work with the game, according to the instructions, and Joey put his address on the opt-in form, so they know where to go to get them back."

That sounded weirdly ominous to Yugi, even though it was perfectly normal. He frowned. This was a strange campaign, sending so much equipment out to random people, just to get beta testers. Though, Joey was right, it was a way to get free feedback. Now he sort of did remember. Something about he'd been selected as part of Round 3 of solicited beta testing, the makers having chosen Japan after going through America and then Germany. Because it was a survival horror, he'd tossed out the invitation.

Joey and Tristan were looking at him expectantly.

"Come on, King of Games, branch out a little," Tristan said with a grin.

"All right, I'm in."

Joey whooped. "Great, I knew you would. Tea, break out those snacks and let's get started."

Tea obligingly started unpacking the snacks she'd brought over. Yugi got bowls and cups from the kitchen, helped by Tristan, while Joey turned on the videogame console, popped in the disc, and then turned on four each of the controllers and headsets. Soon, the group was surrounded by bowls of chips, popcorn, pretzels, and cookies, sipping soda and ginger ale while the game loaded.

"Sure is taking a while," Joey said, passing out the headsets.

"I guess it's because it's in beta," Yugi said, while they watched a tiny series of red dots start filling the bottom edge of the screen. "We should take notes for the developers."

Tea dug into her purse and brought out a spiral notepad and a pen. She jotted down the long load screen. Yugi studied the controller in his hands. It looked almost the same as the controller that belonged to the console, only without anyplace to attach a power cord. He turned it over and saw a red symbol that looked sort of runic on the back of the casing.

"It's doing something," Joey said, drawing Yugi's attention back to the screen.

The symbol on the back of the controller appeared on the screen. Below it, Survive appeared in red letters, then what looked like Latin.

"What's that say?" Joey asked.

"I don't know," Tea said. "Infernum vocat te? Et…advenit daemon? I'm not sure if I'm saying that right."

"Demon?" Tristan guessed. "The monster is a demon."

"Probably, but they should put the translation in their instructions." Tea set down her controller and reached for her notepad and pen.

"I bet they will in the finished game," Joey said. "When they get the instruction booklet together."

The symbol and words faded out. Then the screen suddenly broke into four squares and four faceless, sexless, nude models appeared in each square. On the right of the figures were small boxes containing what looked like a wig, a face, a shirt, and a pair of shoes. At the bottom of each were boxes to add their names.

"Cool, you can customize," Tristan said, immediately moving his cursor to the hair box.

"Yeah, why not," Joey said, selecting his own. "Good luck finding something that looks like yours, Yug'!" he teased as he selected blonde and then drew the cursor to length it.

Yugi laughed and noted that there weren't really many options at all. Bald, crew cut, straight, curly, and spiked. The spikes looked more like a punk rocker, but it was close enough, especially when the length slider made the spikes grow in size. He chose black, since there was definitely no tri-color option, then moved on to eyes. Those did come in purple as well as blue, green, light brown, dark brown, and an unsettling gold that he supposed was meant to be hazel. There were no other face options; once he selected eyes, the model sported a face that looked generic and reminded Yugi of the animated video game series that was on its twelfth or thirteenth title. Handsome, stoic, and bland. He put a black tank top and then black jeans and black sneakers on his character and decided that was good enough. He turned his attention to the others.

Joey's avatar had long blond hair, dark brown eyes, the same exact face as Yugi's, blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and white sneakers. Tristan's avatar had a crew cut, since there was no forehead spike option, was a brunette with light brown eyes, and also wore a white T-shirt and blue jeans, though Tristan had opted for black sneakers.

"Come on, Tea," Joey whined, stuffing another handful of popcorn in his mouth. "Just choose something."

"I want to see all they have," Tea said. She had already selected brown hair and lengthened it to the avatar's shoulders and added blue eyes and a pink V-neck shirt. She was scrolling through the bottom-clothes list, which Yugi saw had a few more options than he'd expected, since he'd just stopped immediately at black jeans. Tea scrolled to the end a couple seconds later, then moved back up and chose a white knee-length skirt. Thankfully for all of the boys, there weren't many shoe options, and she had selected brown sandals in another moment.

"Sandals in a survival horror," Joey muttered.

Tea rapped him lightly on the head with her controller and he snickered and leaned out of her reach. Yugi noted that when she selected a skirt, the avatar's eyes widened slightly into a more feminine look, though all of the models still had such generic features and body stature that it was really impossible to tell they were supposed to be boys and girls. The shoulders were uniformly the same width, the arms and legs the same length and with all the musculature definition of spaghetti. They had less secondary sex characteristics than the mannequins at the mall.

With all four of the avatars selected as complete, the screen faded to black again. The red Latin words and arcane symbol appeared again along with the Japanese admonition Too late to escape.

"Ooh," Tea said in fake fear.

"It's going to be cheesy," Tristan said, taking a drink of soda. "But might still be fun."

Abruptly words sounded in their headsets, not loud, but making them all jump in surprise. The voice was deep and masculine and generically ominous. *Arcanum activate. Yugi Moto has joined Survive. Arcanum activate. Joey Wheeler has joined Survive. Arcanum activate. Tristan Taylor has joined Survive. Arcanum activate. Tea Gardner has joined Survive. Too late to escape.*

"'Arcanum activate?'" Joey repeated. "What's that mean?"

The black screen gave way to four viewing screens. Each appeared to be from the first-person point of view of each of their avatars. Yugi's was facing in such a way that Tristan's was directly in front of him, while Joey and Tea stood on either side. All four were standing in a circle as if conferring with each other.

"TV's too small for this," Tristan said. "No one's going to be able to really see what's going on unless they have one of those huge, fancy TVs."

"I can see," Tea said.

"Yeah, I can, too, but it's still small."

Yugi leaned forward a little and studied his character's screen. The viewpoint shifted downward and the avatar appeared to be looking at a map. Words appeared on the screen and Yugi had to get off the couch and closer to the TV to read them.

"'We're lost,'" he recited. "'We should never have left the trail.'"

Joey came up on his left, reading the text that appeared on his own avatar's screen. "'We'll be fine, quit worrying. There's a town just North of here.'" His avatar's hand tapped the map in Yugi's avatar's hands. "Tea's says, 'We should hurry, it's almost dark.'"

"Too small," Tristan muttered again.

"Relax, T. We can see just fine. One of us will just read the text out loud for the others."

"I'll do it," Yugi volunteered, sitting on his heels at the foot of the TV. The living room one stood on an entertainment station unlike the one in his room, so at least he wasn't blocking the view.

Joey scooted back and resumed his place sitting back against the foot of the couch by Tea's legs. Tristan leaned forward in his armchair, poised for the action to start. Yugi's avatar had consulted a compass while they were talking and now all four avatars were just standing placidly, waiting for their players to move them.

For a few seconds there was confusion as they learned what buttons did what. The direction pad turned the characters in circles while the left joystick made them walk. Tristan found out for all of them that tilting the right joystick with the left made the characters run. Tilting it around its axis made the characters move towards the left and right, but didn't change their full direction, so they ran at angles. The d-pad had to be used for that. This meant that for them to do something like turning a corner, they could only walk. Still, with fast enough button pushes, they wouldn't slow too much doing so. It would just take some getting used to. The X button made the characters jump, the O made them duck or crouch depending on how long the button was held, and the A and B buttons seemed to do nothing. However, the L1 button made Yugi's avatar bring out a flashlight and the R1 made him put it away. The others tested their buttons to see that all of their characters were equipped with flashlights and nothing else.

"There's little battery icons, at the bottom left," Yugi reported, seeing the miniscule symbols. "We should conserve them until it's dark."

They all put away their flashlights and headed as a group to the North. At the bottom right of each of the four screens was a mini compass rose to show they were indeed heading North.

Each of the screens showed a nondescript wooded background. The characters were on no trail, as the storyline had indicated, and were instead plowing through rendered brush, dappled sunshine filtering through the canopy plenty enough to see by for now.

"Tristan's avatar says, 'We don't know how far the town is,'" Yugi said. "Joey's says, 'What else are we going to do?' Tea's says, 'I wish I wasn't wearing sandals.'"

Joey burst out laughing and Tristan joined in. Yugi looked over his shoulder to see Tea looking miffed.

"I told you sandals in a survival game was a bad idea!" Joey gasped between howls of laughter. "The game agrees!"

"Why did they give that option then?" Tea sniffed. "I'll change."

Yugi looked back at the screen, but though all four of their avatars had stopped, nothing happened on Tea's screen.

"It won't let me."

"I bet once you choose, you're stuck," Tristan said. Yugi looked back to see he was still amused, but getting a hold of himself. Joey had taken advantage of the break to eat some more chips.

Tea sighed and shrugged. "Well, she hiked all the way here in sandals, I guess she'll be okay."

"Hey, we can't pause," Joey said. He was pushed the start and stop button on his controller.

"Do you think it's a bug?" Yugi asked, testing his own and getting the same result.

"Maybe you're not supposed to be able to," Joey mused. "You know, you're supposed to survive. It's not realistic if you can just pause when a monster's coming for you."

"It's a game," Tea said. "What do they expect, that people will just play for hours without stopping?"

"Yes," Joey and Tristan said at the same time.

Tea rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. That's not a good feature." She set her controller down and picked up her pen and pad.

Yugi was turning his avatar around in circles so he could look in every direction. There was nothing to see except empty woods and the other avatars.

Suddenly the voice in their ears made them all jump again.

*Arcanum activate. Seto Kaiba has joined Survive.*

"Kaiba?" Joey repeated in astonishment. "He's doing this?"

"It's an online game?" Tea asked. "I mean, I guess that's why you can't pause. Still, I'll leave that note."

"If it's an online game, why isn't there a microphone on these?" Tristan asked.

Yugi turned his character around in circles again, but saw nothing on the screen but his friends and empty woods. "Do you think we came far enough that his avatar is not rendered in our area?" he asked, looking back at the others.

"Who cares?" Joey grumbled. Then he grinned evilly. "Hey, I wonder if I can pick up a fallen branch and cave his head in."

"Joey, we're all supposed to be surviving the demon, not each other," Tea admonished.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Looks like we can't anyway," Tristan said. "No matter what you push, all the characters can do is walk, jump, run, and use the flashlight."

"Lame."

Tea sighed and started her avatar walking. Yugi was still turning his in a circle to see if Kaiba's avatar appeared, but he still saw nothing.

"Hurry up, Yug', you're getting left behind," Joey said.

Yugi turned his avatar to the North and saw the backs of the other three. He ran until he'd caught up, then slowed to a walk. Maybe Kaiba's avatar had spawned somewhere else entirely. Maybe the game had different spawn points assigned to each test disc or maybe it was randomly generated.

They walked for a few minutes and Yugi noted that the sunlight in the game was slowly darkening. Faster than it would in real life, which meant the internal clock of the game was faster than real time, which was typical.

Suddenly, the screens all froze and their characters stopped walking. Because the screen had faded to black the same way it had during the original cutscene did Yugi know that it wasn't a glitch. Sure enough, the screen turned to one box and started playing a cutscene. Out of the headset came faint woodsy sounds such as wind in the leaves, bugs buzzing, and a crow cawing in the distance. Then the caw was suddenly right in their ears and they along with their avatars jumped.

"This game isn't for someone with a heart condition," Tea grumbled.

The four avatars, standing together in one movie cutscene, all looked up at the crow perched in a nearby tree. The viewpoint changed to first person and the crow looked back at them, fluttering its wings and tilting its head back and forth to view the avatars with each eye. Yugi noted the eyes were red and not black. Text at the bottom of the screen let him know one of the avatars had noticed this, too, though there was no voices or any indication which avatar was talking. The words faded away to be replaced by another avatar saying the crow was creepy and a third saying it was just a crow. Typical horror movie dialogue.

The crow cawed again, then abruptly looked head-on as the screen tightened in on its face. It's red eyes started to glow. It cawed loudly right into the camera, which went black. The four split screens reappeared and the four avatars stood in complacent silence.

"Um, okay," Joey said.

Yugi turned his avatar in circles again, but saw nothing but the other players. He realized that tilting the right joystick without the left one made the character look up and down instead of drifting left and right while walking or running. He focused his avatar's point of view on the tree and noted that the crow was gone. He spun his avatar around in a circle to be sure he had the right tree and confirmed it was gone.

"Nothing to do but head for the town," Tristan said.

"This game is boring," Tea said as they started walking again.

"It's building up the suspense," Joey said. "That demon or whatever is going to be in the town, bet you."

"Maybe it was the crow," Yugi suggested.

"Yeah, maybe."

"Maybe," Tea agreed.

The voice came over the headsets again. It was not loud, but Yugi couldn't get used to the suddenness of it as the game itself was silent outside of the cutscenes.

*Arcanum activate.*

"Who joined?" Tea asked.

This time, the player's name was not announced.

"Maybe they forgot to add their names in the customization," Tristan suggested. "I didn't know you could skip it."

*Player Seto Kaiba life-force draining. Flee. Flee. Flee.*

"Wow, the demon got Kaiba," Tristan said.

"Ha!" Joey of course.

Yugi frowned, still marching his character forward. The voice on the headset was ominous, but held no emotion. It sounded more robotic than a business's after-hours answering machine. Still, a chill went down his spine for some reason. He hoped Kaiba's avatar could escape.

"Let's run," he said, moving his character into a sprint.

"What for?" Joey asked, despite doing the same. "Let the demon have him. Some international champion."

"That was Duel Monsters only," Tea pointed out. "Yugi, we don't know our avatars can help even if we do find his."

"We should get the town before it gets dark," Yugi said, though he was secretly hoping their avatars could help and that they would find him. Something felt off. "Look, we can already barely see."

"We could barely see at the start," Tristan muttered, hounding on the fact that the split screen set up on a normal living room TV did make the individual viewpoints about as big as an iPad.

*Seto Kaiba life-force critical.*

The light on the screen was now too dark to accurately see. Just the faintest outline allowed him to watch Tristan's avatar plow into a tree and fall down. He stopped his own and turned on his flashlight, watching as Tristan's avatar got to his feet. He was bent over and realistically rubbing his head and clutching his side.

*Tristan Taylor life-force injury,* the game announced. *Full recovery in one minute.*

Joey and Tea had stopped their avatars as well and turned on their flashlights. Despite the injury to their companion, none of their avatars reacted, just standing in the usual swaying stasis of videogames the world over. Tristan's avatar was still rubbing his head and ribs in continuous painful mimicry.

"We gotta wait here a whole minute for him to recover?" Joey asked in annoyance. "Ugh, lame. How can we escape the monster if our characters just stand there when they're hurt?"

"Oh, he's not," Tristan said, sounding embarrassed. "Sorry, I wasn't moving him."

Joey sighed theatrically. Yugi watched as Tristan's character went around the tree and started walking again, but saw he did so hunched over and clutching his ribs with both arms.

"I can't run," Tristan said.

"I guess that's realistic," Tea said as she, Yugi, and Joey started following. "If you really ran into a tree, you wouldn't be doing cartwheels right after."

"It'll make it harder to survive," Yugi said. "If the monster finds us when we're recovering, and we have no weapons."

*Seto Kaiba life-force stabilized,* the game said. *Full recovery in five minutes.*

"Oh, good, he got away."

"Damn," Joey griped. He grinned when Yugi gave him a reproving look.

Tristan's character suddenly straightened. Although there was no health-bar or any other icon that indicated the life force, clearly Tristan's had recovered. Yugi wondered if a full real-life minute had passed.

They started running again without consulting each other. On a whim, Yugi realized he'd never pushed his controller's menu select button and he did so then, wondering if that was the pause. Only it wasn't. His screen was filled with the map his character had been looking at before, but only for a few seconds before it abruptly went flying away realistically as his character went ass over teakettle over a rock. His avatar had continued running even as he got out the map.

*Yugi Moto life-force injury,* the game said stoically. *Full recovery in one minute.*

The camera showed the ground partly in his character's field of vision before it spun away in what appeared to be the motion of his character rolling over and sitting up. He couldn't really see anything but his own character's outstretched legs on his own screen, but glancing at Joey's as he turned his avatar back to Yugi's showed his character rubbing his arm.

As before, the other avatars didn't react to their companion's injury. Tristan and Tea had returned to where Yugi's had tripped and they just stood there as Yugi's character got to his feet and picked up his map, all automatically. The map covered Yugi's screen again while at the bottom the words, "I should stop running if I want to view my map" appeared.

"Good advice," Joey said with a snicker when Yugi read it out loud.

The game seemed to be rebuking their choices even though there had been no instructions or tutorials at all. Yugi supposed the smartass game AI was a feature. It was kind of funny, in a way, and some players would undoubtedly find it so while others would probably rail at the screen for not telling them.

The map looked just like a regular map, except so pixilated and featureless that it was clear it wasn't intended to be actually read by the player, just the character in-game. Sure enough, words appeared at the bottom of his screen that said, "We're almost there. Maybe another mile."

The map didn't have any icons indicating where they were in relation to the supposed town, which on the pixilated map was nothing but a big gray blur just above and to the right of the center. Yugi supposed the spawn points were not that far from the town, and the compass rose let them know they were going the right direction, but otherwise, they'd just have to move until they found it. He supposed if they had spawned to the North of the town, the dialogue would have indicated they needed to go South.

"Our characters are Olympic track gold medalists," Joey said as they all took off again.

Tea giggled. "At least they don't get tired or winded," she said. "Like that one car theft game. That would be irritating."

"More realistic, though," Tristan pointed out.

"Hey, I think the town's up ahead," Tea said.

Sure enough, the woods abruptly ended and their characters broke into a clearing. The four screens froze and then went black. Another cutscene started. The four characters all stopped near the edge of the woods and gazed at the town. There was now a lot of moonlight to see by now that they were out from under the canopy. Yugi noted the avatars all looked disappointed and nervous. At least, as much as their fairly-featureless faces could express. The camera panned around to their viewpoint and Yugi saw why. It was ghost town. Immediately in front of them, a short distance across an overgrown meadow, was a two-story house with busted windows, peeling paint, and missing shingles. A fence with crooked stakes surrounded the house. To the right was another house with another picket fence and in equal disrepair. Partially visible around it was a third house. To the left of the house most directly across from their avatars was a dirt road with weeds growing in it. A street sign post leaning drunkenly into the road. Catacorner to the first house was another one, also having seen better days. It appeared their characters had come up on a street block that was only two houses deep before it turned farther in the distance with the third house they could only see a portion of. Across the street was an empty lot before the catacorner house started lining that side of the street.

The camera moved, alternately showing the avatars moving through the meadow at the edge of the woods to get a vantage point they could look down the road and of the view itself. The closest house was moved out of their line of sight and the avatars looked down the road to see two rows of decrepit, empty houses that Yugi counted to be four houses long, eight in total long the street. In front of the house they'd initially been across from, on the other side from what Yugi's avatar could see, another road went to the right, apparently splitting off to make a parallel side street, although the block was still only two houses deep. That meant the width of the town was two streets and at most four houses deep, assuming both streets had houses on both sides. He couldn't be sure from what his avatar was looking at.

Down the dirt road, in the distance, rose the church or mansion from the cover of the game. He could only see the belfry, a pair of widows walks, and a black shingles from his character's vantage point. Apparently the town had a small slope as the road went on.

The avatars looked at each other and Yugi dutifully relayed the dialogue. The characters briefly argued about entering the town. It was clear there was no one living here, so there would be no phone service or food, but on the other hand, their other option was to wait the night in the woods. One of the avatars, this time on-screen to show it was Joey's talking, said he'd rather spend the night in a dusty, mildewy bed than in the dirt getting bitten by bugs. The other characters ended up agreeing and the four started towards the town. The cutscene faded and the avatar split-screens reappeared, showing their characters waiting to be moved at the end of the street. Closer to the town than before the cutscene had started, more of the big building at the end of town was visible, but Yugi still couldn't tell if it was a church or a gothic house.

"What year is this game set in?" Tristan asked as they moved their characters in a walk down the road.

"Probably modern day. Why?" Joey asked.

"They haven't mentioned cell phones or anything. Usually modern horror movies mention the characters have no service."

"Huh. I didn't notice."

"Maybe it's set a couple decades ago," Tea said. "Although, we're hiking without supplies or anything, so maybe our characters are just stupid."

"Yours is the one in sandals."

"I didn't know we'd be hiking!"

*Seto Kaiba life-force draining. Flee. Flee. Flee.*

"Again?" Joey said. "Man, Kaiba, you suck."

"He probably got dumped in the middle of it just like we did," Yugi said. "The demon just found him first."

*Seto Kaiba life-force critical.*

"Come on, Kaiba, run," Tristan told the screen as their characters went down the road.

They were halfway towards the big building and Yugi counted the houses as they passed them. Not four on a side, but six, for twelve total. Which made the building at the end thirteen on the street. How cliché. He wondered if the address would prove to be 666. At least there weren't only thirteen houses in the whole town. If the second street had only one row of houses, and there was at least one more next door to the big one, there'd be twenty-two in town.

The characters reached the big building. Still, Yugi annoyingly couldn't tell if it was meant to be a house or a church. There were no crucifixes anywhere, but there was also no mailbox or driveway. It just stood on unbroken grass some distance from the road. Yugi noted there were no sidewalks and when he turned his character around, there was no house to the side of the big one and the parallel street did only have one row of houses facing it. Twenty-one houses in town, then.

"Must be a church," Yugi mused aloud. Because next door to the big building was a cemetery. The gravestones were uniformly classic stone stabs with arched tops. There was writing on them, but it was as badly pixilated as the map. There was a short brick wall topped with a spiked wrought-iron fence surrounding the graveyard, which had collapsed in one area. An opening where the parallel dirt road led into it did have a sign big enough to read. Yugi moved his character closer and made out Arcanum Cemetery.

*Player death,* the game suddenly growled. *Life-force depleted. Seto Kaiba terminated. Soul collection imminent.*

"Ew," Tea said.

"Wow, he bit it," Joey said. "Wonder where?"

"In there," Yugi said, turning his avatar to the church. "I'm sure of it."

He just didn't know why that upset him so much.

tbc...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

Seto stared at the screen, at a loss. He'd died in about ten minutes.

-  
Almost as soon as his avatar spawned inside the pathetic little ghostown, he was attacked by the demon, or whatever it was. It had been perched on the roof of one of the houses and Seto didn't get a good look at it as it jumped down and went after his avatar. The screen started flashing red around the edges while the game informed him he was dying. He spun around to try and attack back, but though the previously unused A button now allowed him to punch, the demon dodged him easily. He wasn't even been able to keep it in sight on the screen. All he got were a few quick impressions of a towering, lanky something with black skin and red eyes. As the game informed his character was in critical condition, he had no choice but to try and run. The little avatar stumbled away, from the angle of the camera clutching his stomach with both arms and staggering. The red was still pulsing on the screen and in Seto's headset came the rapid, panicked sound of a thundering heart and equally rapid, pained breathing. His character, presumably.

The demon attacked him again and he watched as his avatar flew forward several feet before crashing face-down into the road. For a few seconds, he didn't move, but then he slowly managed to get to his feet and limp towards the church at the end of town, now just a few yards from his battered avatar's position.

Seto supposed the demon must be playing with him. It could have easily killed him several times by now, but he guessed it was behind him, watching with amusement while his helpless character tried desperately to make it to the church.

Suddenly, the screen froze and then faded to black before turning into a cutscene. Seto watched impatiently as his character lurched up the steps to the front door. It was unlocked and the avatar slipped inside and shut the door, locking it himself. Then he turned around, for a few seconds in third-person on the screen. Seto saw blood running down the mostly nondescript face from a scalp wound, blue eyes wide with terror. Then the view changed back to first-person and Seto saw that the church was not a church, but a mansion. Why was there a cemetery next door then?

Stretching out before his avatar was a front hall, not unlike the front hall in his own manor. However, this one didn't open onto a grand staircase. Instead, there were two doors on either side and one set of double doors at the far end. As the cutscene played, his avatar timidly walked along the hall, peering quickly into each room. There was faint illumination from an overhead lighting fixture and some from moonlight streaming through some windows, so Seto saw the room were a parlor, a dining room, a billiards room, and a conservatory. All were furnished, but dusty and dilapidated, with much of the furniture covered in clothes.

*Seto Kaiba life-force stabilized,* the game said. *Full recovery in five minutes.*

Well, at least the immediate danger had passed. The cutscene was still going on and Seto settled back in his chair and watched.

The avatar made it to the double doors and pushed one open. The hinges creaked in Seto's ear. The door had opened onto a ballroom. The fancy marble floor was chipped and stained. An impressive silver-and-crystal chandelier was festooned with cobwebs and when the character flipped the light switch, less than half of the bulbs came on. On the left of the room was a massive fireplace, unlit, with a marble mantle on which stood pixilated photos in fancy frames. On the right of the fireplace, in the far corner to Seto's avatar, stood grandfather clock that had a broken pendulum glass, the shards of which glittered on the floor. Opposite the grandfather clock, on a corner dias, stood a baby grand piano and a harp. In the corner immediately to the avatar's left was a triangular sideboard, custom made to fit in the corner, covered in empty serving dishes. To the avatar's right was the staircase, a manor spiral staircase that disappeared up into darkness.

Seto was becoming irritated to this long cutscene. He tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair as he watched his avatar survey the room. A sound came from somewhere in the distance, somewhat cleverly issuing in such a way from the headphones that it genuinely sounded it had come from behind Seto. The avatar reacted, looking back into the hall, once again in third-person. Seto watched as the avatar didn't seem to see anything, but nevertheless fully entered the ballroom and let the double doors swing shut. The cutscene continued in third-person and Seto watched the avatar walk to the stairs and start up it. He was moving gingerly and painfully, clutching his side with one hand and the railing with the other. He climbed up and entered into a long hallway that appeared to stretch the length of the whole manor. There was a single light fixture overhead, just above the point where the staircase ended, and didn't adequately illuminate the whole hallway. Along the hallway, which went to both the left and the right of the staircase's egress, were at least eight or nine more doors.

If the cutscene continued to show the avatar look through every room, Seto was going to turn the game off and send it back right then. So the company had solicited his testing so that they could possibly be marketed by his company, as their letter had stated, so what? If this was what they had to offer, Seto had no interest in considering branching into videogames. He usually hated them anyway. Why he'd decided to try this one, he wasn't sure. It was brazen of the little nothing company to have sent him this package unasked to begin with. If the disc gave his computer a virus, he'd destroy them.

The cutscene switched to first-person and the avatar started down the longer side of the hall to the left. Seto was reaching for the USB receiver to unplug the controller when the action started again. His character was smashed flat into the floor by what was presumably the demon. Blood sprayed up the wall as it added more cuts into his character's back. Third-person came back and his character automatically scrambled, half-hobbled, to his feet. He limped as rapidly as he could down the hall, all the way to the end door, then turned around in terror.

The hall was empty.

The cutscene abruptly ended and Seto's injured little avatar started swaying in place in the typical videogame idle motion. Wondering what the hell he was supposed to do, Seto took up the controls again and swung the avatar back to the closest door. A small instruction prompt told him he could try to open the door with B. Snorting, Seto tried it. It opened onto a master bedroom. The canopied bed was done in some sort of dark bedclothes, but the only light was the moonlight coming through the large broken windows on either side of the bed. There was a dresser, a highboy, a hope chest, and a another fireplace. There were other doors that probably opened onto a closet and a master bath, although Seto wasn't interested in verifying that. The room was useless.

Seto went across to the door to the right and found another bedroom. Smaller, with a four-poster bed, another dresser and highboy, another, smaller fireplace, no hope chest, and only a closet door. This one was open and hanging on its hinges, but Seto could only see faint, motionless, pixilated shapes in there. Abandoned clothing, maybe.

The door across the hall was locked. Annoyed, Seto walked back down the hall towards the stairs. The demon was still gone, but he noted his character walked with what appeared to be reluctance as he made him move towards where he'd last been attacked. The AI script was somewhat impressive.

Seto was not about to try all the doors anymore than he'd been about to sit and watch his avatar do it. He bypassed the rest and went back to the stairs. A very brief cutscene showed his character peering nervously down the empty staircase and then he was given back control. He marched his character down the stairs. He had no idea what he was supposed to do to win, but maybe he could arm his character. The best place to find a weapon was the kitchen. He'd seen a door leading off from the dining room while the avatar had been exploring, so that was probably it.

Downstairs, another noise sounded across his headphones, but nothing else happened. Seto walked his character across the ballroom, through the doors, and down the front hall. The front door stood open, despite having been locked previously, open onto the silent, dark night. Seto ignored it and walked into the dining room. Sure enough, there was the door, and it did lead into a kitchen. The kitchen lights worked when Seto used B to turn on the light switch, and they showed a filthy wreck. The linoleum was stained, the counters were stained, the rack holding the pots and pans was covered in cobwebs, there were broken dishes all over, and two of the cabinets had broken doors. A drawer was missing in one. Across from the entrance of the kitchen stood a huge cast iron oven built into the wall. To the left was a stainless steel double sink. Seto crossed the kitchen and saw B pop up to open a drawer next to the sink. He did so, finding what looked like dish cloths and dish towels. No other drawer option appeared, so he moved to the other side of the sink and tried that drawer. Normal silverware.

Seto turned his character around, telling himself he'd give this game another couple of minutes before he turned it off, and found another, much longer counter. It had more cabinets above it, a microwave, a coffee maker and pot, an upended electric mixing bowl, what was probably a cutting board, and a rack of kitchen knives. Finally.

To Seto's relief, the game allowed him to arm himself with a butcher knife from the set. Although what a mundane knife would do against what was apparently a demon according to the starting Latin was beyond him. Maybe it was silver. Seto didn't know enough about the occult to know if silver worked on demons like it did on werewolves. Although who had a silver butcher knife?

What sounded like unintelligible whispering came over the headset and Seto turned around. Nothing, but the light fixture started flickering. Seto crossed the kitchen and back into the dining room. Its light fixture also started flickering and the voice continued to speak. Seto crossed the dining room and came back into the main hall. The whispering continued, but there was nothing to see. Seto debated for a second on going outside or back into the ballroom. There was that locked room upstairs. If this game had typical horror logic, the locked room could hold some kind of clue or escape. The problem was, how was he to get it open with a flashlight and a butcher knife?

Maybe he was stuck with searching all the upstairs rooms. There was also the sideboard in the ballroom and the one in the front hall. Seto tried that first, since he was right by it, but got no action option. He turned and headed back into the ballroom.

Seto cursed as another cutscene started. Well, if the company wanted feedback, telling them that they had a game that was more movie than game would definitely be at the top of the list.

In third person, the character cringed, clutching his butcher knife to his chest with both hands, looking around wildly as the whispering that had been faint before now escalated in volume. Seto was sure there were words, but he couldn't make them out. It wasn't Japanese, Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Egyptian, Latin, Russian, or German, all of which he either knew or could discern the patterns of. There were thousands more languages, but Seto had a feeling that this one wasn't contemporary. Maybe it was Aramaic or Sumerian, considering the demon.

The character was backing into the ballroom, looking around feverishly in every direction, terror evident on his poorly-rendered face. Abruptly, he noticed a shape in the darkest corner of the ballroom, under the stairs. He turned and fled, heading all the way across and to the French doors. They opened not onto a veranda or a courtyard, but an indoor pool. The pool was still half-filled with dirty, but semi-clear water and dead potted plants lined the outer rims of the tiled pool skirt. The character tried to go to the right of the pool skirt, but was blitzed from behind by the demon again.

*Seto Kaiba life-force draining. Flee. Flee. Flee.*

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" Seto demanded of the game. "The whole damn thing is a cutscene."

But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the game allowed him control. He hit the punch button and was at least pleased that the character swung the knife in panicked, sweeping arcs. The pool area was very poorly illuminated, so he could still only make out the barest details of the demon, but it appeared to be at least a foot taller than his avatar, skinny and yet with ropey muscles, and what looked like great horns on its head and jutting, pointed ears. Glowing red eyes had elliptical pupils and its skin was black as pitch and looked mottled and bumpy like a lizard's. Its mouth was open and appeared somewhat lupine, but the whole thing was so black, in a gloomy room, that he couldn't really pick out facial features. He could see a mouthful of wolfish fangs and when it swiped a hand at his avatar, Seto had a brief glimpse of talons like an eagle's and fingers much longer than a human's. The swipe missed his avatar, but Seto finally scored himself. The knife raked the demon diagonally across the chest and an awful screeching that sounded half catlike and half metallic sounded in his ears, making him wince. This stupid game had better not cause him hearing loss.

Black blood sprayed out of the cut and patterned on the dirty floor. Seto was still spamming the A button, as there was not much else he could do. More swings of the knife missed, but finally one caught the reaching demon across the forearm. This time there was no otherworldly scream, just a growl that would put any dog to shame. The demon grabbed his avatar's knife arm and held on, digging talons in and starting more blood flowing. The game told him to kick with X, which before had been jump, so he did. The demon's other arm came forward and talons grabbed his thigh and dug in. The game told him to punch with A and he did, the character using his left arm now. The demon growled again, then threw his avatar into the pool.

The game went to first-person, but remained in action mode. Seto noted that the screen had a fairly realistic rendering of bubbles passing in front of his character's vision. It there was one thing this game did well, it was graphics. Even during actions sequences the graphic quality was as good as any cutscene, which was very uncommon. The only blurred, pixilated objects were photos and the map that weren't really supposed to be useful, just world-building.

The game told him B now allowed him to swim. He did so, seeing that his character was doing some sort of frenzied clawing motion, the butcher knife still in one hand, and getting pretty much nowhere. At last, though, the avatar's head broke the surface and the headphones supplied a desperate gasp for air. The character stabilized a little and started doing a real breast-stroke for the far end of the pool. There were another set of French doors on that end and Seto was sure, judging by the quality of the light, that these ones did actually lead outside.

His character's vision was suddenly plunged into the water. There was no sound, as the game lacked quite a bit of that, but Seto discerned the demon had jumped on him and sent them both to the bottom of the pool. A became active again, but the game's realistic physics engine rendered water resistance to his avatar's desperate attempts to turn around and attack. At last the avatar was able to turn around to face the demon, who had a hold of his left leg, and tried to stab it in the face. The demon's free hand caught the avatar's knife arm's wrist and appeared to break it. The knife went sinking to the pool floor. The demon let go of the leg and his avatar kicked and thrashed in desperation. Seto noted the demon didn't appear to be affected by water resistance itself as it swiped at his character with the same speed as it had above the water. More cuts opened on the avatar's free arm, side, and chest. As he curled away protectively, moving on his own though the game was still in action mode, the demon started tearing up his back. The A button that allowed Seto to punch activated and while the character was still clearly affected by water resistance, the badly torn-up left fist started pounding on the taloned hand holding the right wrist. Then X made the character pry at the fingers and demon did let go, but that was no escape for Seto's avatar.

Now the demon used both hands to slash and slash at his floundering avatar. 'Swim' was now more like spastically flail and while the avatar did manage to turn around and try to dog paddle to the surface, the demon grabbed his leg again and dragged him back. Bubbles burst out of his character's mouth and Seto was pretty sure he was drowning.

The demon didn't give him enough time to drown. As it yanked him back, it abruptly dug talons into the avatar's stomach and disemboweled him.

The avatar went limp and the action turned to a cutscene. As Seto watched, third-person went from the demon's feral, grinning face to his character's bulging, horrified eyes. The last bubbles of air escaped from the soundlessly gasping mouth and the water started filling with red. As it turned from semi-pink to crimson-red, the avatar's pupils realistically dilated and the gaze went fixed and unseeing. There were no more bubbles and no more movement.

*Player death. Life-force depleted. Seto Kaiba terminated. Soul collection imminent.*

Seto watched in stunned silence as the dead avatar drifted in the blood-stained water. The runic symbol that was the logo of the game came over the screen, but was transparent and the cutscene continued on in the background. The two taloned hands appeared and cupped the dead avatar's cheeks. The third-person camera pulled back and Seto watched as the demon leaned forward as if it was going to kiss the corpse. It stopped a couple inches shy of that and appeared to suck in a great deal of bloody water, which didn't appear to bother it anyway. As it inhaled like a vacuum, far exceeding the capacity of any living thing's lungs, a bluish-white radiance began to glow in the dead avatar's mouth that swiftly became a stream of light or glowing smoke that poured out of the avatar's mouth and into the demon's. His soul, apparently. The demon drained the whole soul out and then let the avatar go. The camera tightened in on the dead face as the avatar sank slowly to the bottom of the pool.

The runic logo solidified and instead of Game Over, more Latin appeared on the screen. Seto didn't bother to read it as he contemptuously snapped his laptop's screen down and pushed the button to draw the game's disc out. The tray popped out and he grabbed the disc and put it in the jewel case, removed the USB receiver from the port, turned off the headphones and controller, and dumped the lot haphazardly back into the box to be dealt with later.

Standing, he stretched and then left the office.

tbc...


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

Joey swigged his soda as he watched the cutscene that had started as soon as the four of them had moved their avatars up the church's front steps and inside. It turned out that it wasn't a church, but some sort of manor house.

"Who has a cemetery next door to their house?" Tristan asked.

"People who live in horror movies," Joey said, taking another drink.

The four avatars were huddled just inside the door in the front hall. Yugi's avatar had timidly called out to see if anyone was in the house, though it was obviously abandoned. Now they were whispering amongst themselves, debating on whether they should explore. At last, Tristan's avatar broke away from the group and moved to the nearest doorway, which turned out to be a huge, dusty parlor filled with sheet-covered furniture.

"The electricity works," Tea said. "But the place is abandoned."

"Standard horror stuff," Joey said dismissively.

The four avatars argued about staying in the parlor or heading upstairs to the bedrooms. As the parlor had one loveseat and two wingback armchairs, there was no good place for any of them to lay down, so they opted to head upstairs. Then the game switched back to action mode. Joey set down his empty soda can and took up the controls again, moving his character further down the hall. He surveyed the rooms, finding a dining room, a billiards room, and a conservatory. The far end had a pair of double doors.

Words came over the bottom of Joey's screen. Yugi read them aloud, "'Hey, there's blood here.'"

As himself, he said, "That must be Kaiba's avatar's blood."

Then as Tea's character, he recited, "'Blood? We should leave. We should leave now.'"

The four avatars turned to each other and while the game didn't switch to a cutscene, none of them could move. The dialogue was still appearing at the bottom of each respective character's screen and Yugi continued to read it for the rest's benefit.

As Tristan's avatar: "'What? Maybe someone's hurt. We can't leave.'"

His own: "'He's right, it looks fresh, which means someone could use our help.'"

Tea's: "'There's no people here.'"

Yugi's: "'Then where did the blood come from?'"

Joey's: "'We'll look real quick. And maybe there's a phone around here. If the lights work, maybe the phone works, too, and we can call the police.'"

The characters unfroze and Joey saw a B flash up with the words 'Open door' big enough to read without Yugi's assistance. Joey pushed it and his avatar pushed open the double doors. They opened into a pretty, but dirty ballroom. To the right was a neat spiral staircase, which his own avatar announced had blood leading to it. Dutifully, Joey walked his avatar to the stairs and up it. He had to use both joysticks and his character pretty much smeared himself along the railing as he went up, the fine motor control a bit lacking, but still ascended without pause. Tristan and Tea followed. Yugi, however, stood at the bottom of the staircase, and a glance at his screen told Joey he was looking around.

"Yug', we're going upstairs."

"I know, but we're just running headlong into an abandoned mansion in a horror game. That's how characters die."

"You still have to follow the story. See, what is my character saying?"

"Yelling at my character to hurry up."

"See?"

Yugi sighed and started his character up the stairs. Tristan, Tea, and Joey waited at the head of the stairs for him, but once he'd arrived, Joey pressed on down the hall. He went right, down the shorter fork, which was better lit. Only one hallway light fixture worked.

There were two doors here and both opened onto nothing helpful. One appeared to be a study, with a big roll top desk, wheeled wooden desk chair, a fireplace, and some big, pixilated portraits. The other was a library, filled with shelves of books and some more pixilated portraits. There was a fireplace that had two sheeted armchairs facing it with a drink table between them. The window in here was broken and the moldy curtains billowed on a night breeze.

Tristan had moved further down the hall to the left. He found what looked like a children's play room. There were still building blocks scattered on the floor, a rocking horse, a toy chest, a doll house, a doll sitting in a doll chair, and another set of sheeted arm chairs, though these ones were on opposite sides of the door. The doll was a fancy girl doll wearing what was probably a dress and a bonnet. The only light source was the moonlight coming in through the window, so not much could be seen of the face.

"Ugh, if that thing comes to life, I quit this game," Tristan said, his character's point of view on the doll sitting in the chair.

Tea had gone to the room at the opposite side of the hall and found an expansive bathroom. The light worked, but there was nothing of interest in there. Yugi walked further in, then panned his character's POV camera down.

"There's blood on the floor here. And my character says the same thing."

The other three characters turned to Yugi's, but no cutscene started. Instead, Yugi reported that Tea's called for the injured person to speak up, to no avail. Joey's suggested they look in every room, incase the person was unconscious. Tristan's pointed out they still needed to find a phone as well. Together, Tea and Tristan turned to the last two matching doors and found a pair of bedrooms. Joey passed them and tried a small door that had no counterpoint across the hall. This turned out to be locked.

"Bet we have to get in there," he said.

"Probably," Yugi agreed. His avatar passed Joey's and tried the big door at the very end of the hall. It was the master bedroom suite. More dialogue appeared on the screen. "My character says dibs."

Another cutscene started. Joey grumbled and rested his controller back on his lap. The four characters bundled into the master bedroom, exploring. Tea's went across the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Joey's went to check out the door leading off from it and the camera showed it was a master bath. Tristan's was pawing through clutter on a dresser. Yugi's surveyed the room and pointed out that the injured person they'd been seeking was not up here.

"'Maybe they saw there was no phone and went back downstairs'," Yugi reported Joey's avatar as saying. "'We should go look.'"

Obligingly, the four avatars came together at the door of the bedroom, then the action restarted. Shrugging, Joey walked his avatar down the hall to the stairs, the other three following him. They headed back down to the ballroom and then Joey went across it to the set of French double doors. It was there that Yugi reported Joey's avatar as worriedly pointing out more blood and Joey used his avatar to open the doors.

Inside was a dim, grimy indoor pool. And a whole lot of blood.

A cutscene started again. The four avatars started talking over one another in frightened frenzy, Yugi struggling to keep up with the dialogue, which was mostly just, "Oh, god, so much blood" and, "We have to get out of here."

Yugi's avatar spotted the body. It was at the bottom of the pool, in a dead man's float, and as the camera zoomed in closer, clearly in a state of absolute ruin. The graphics were disturbingly good for such cut-and-paste characters, and even with the rendered murky water and dim lighting, Joey could see a multitude of cuts through the shredded clothing, which appeared to be black pants and black turtleneck. Kaiba's avatar. At first glance, there appeared to be tentacles floating in the water, until Joey realized that they were Kaiba's avatar's guts.

"Gross," Tea said. "I don't know if I want to play this anymore."

"It's just a game, Tea," Tristan said, crunching into some chips. "That's really tame."

"Damn, demon did a number on Kaiba," Joey said. "Wonder where it is?"

Yugi had been silently watching the screen, but abruptly he stood up and turned around, coming over to the couch. "Tea, can I see your cell phone?"

"Sure." Tea set down her controller and dug in her purse, pulling it out and handing it over. Yugi turned it on and started tapping something rapidly. Joey leaned toward him, even though Yugi was facing him and he wouldn't be able to see the screen.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Looking up Survive." Yugi frowned at the screen. "There's nothing here. There's no web pages or any news about it."

"It's in beta, remember? Not released."

"Yeah, but how would there not be anything? Promotions, or fan theories, or even spoilers? There's no mention of it at all."

"Well-"

*Yugi Moto life-force draining. Flee. Flee. Flee.*

They all looked at the screen. While they'd been distracted, the cutscene had ended and the demon had appeared. Tristan's avatar was the only one facing it and Yugi's avatar and so only on his screen was there a good view. Still, Joey couldn't really see it very well. It was tall, black, with horns and red eyes, and some nasty hooked claws it was using to tear the shit out of Yugi's avatar's back.

"Whoa!" Joey exclaimed. "Shit, Yug', run!"

Yugi tossed Tea's phone onto the couch cushion beside her and picked up his controller from the floor. He started to try and make his character run for it, but, as before, the avatar was stumbling and staggering. The demon took three steps and grabbed him, lifting him up into the air and apparently choking him. The avatar's legs kicked spastically and the game told Yugi to push A, which he did, making his avatar try to pry the demon's hands off his throat. Red began to pulse around the edges of Yugi's screen.

*Yugi Moto life-force critical.*

Without thinking about it, Joey ran his avatar to the demon and saw the instruction to punch with A and kick with X. He mashed the buttons and his avatar starting pounding on the demon. Tristan joined in and the demon's voice came over the headphones. It sounded like someone had mixed a motorcycle idling with a dog's growl: inhuman and frightening. Then Yugi's character dropped to the filthy tiles and they all heard a man gasping and coughing for breath. The demon turned around, and with one backhanded sweep of its arm, shoved Joey's avatar into the pool.

Water filled the screen and bubbles floated past the character's vision. B told him to swim and he did, but his avatar was at first angled downward and Joey noticed something on the pool's floor. It looked like a knife. He took a chance and dived downward toward it and was told to pick it up with A. He did so and turned the character towards the surface.

He got a brief shot of Kaiba's dead avatar still floating down near the pool floor and he had to admit, that was creepy. Then his character pushed off from the pool's floor on his own and propelled himself up. He broke the surface and audibly sucked in air. Joey noted in the back of his mind that the audio file sounded the same as Yugi's.

*Tristan Taylor life-force draining.*

No 'flee' this time. Well, no wonder, since a glance at Tea's screen showed the demon was stomping on Tristan's avatar like a kid having a tantrum. Tea herself was trying to beat the demon off while Yugi's avatar was climbing to his feet. Joey swam his over to the edge of the pool and climbed out, then went after the demon with the knife. 'Punch' plunged the knife into the demon's back.

All of them cringed as the a metallic, grating screech came over the headphones and Joey even jerked his off.

Suddenly, another cutscene started. The split screen became one and the demon reached back and yanked the knife out of its back. The four avatars had crowded together, Joey's helping Tristan's up, and they were backing up, terrified looks on their faces.

Quite suddenly, two more avatars appeared. They came in from the outer doors of the pool room that led to the back of the big house. A man and a woman, they had similar brown hair, with both wearing white shirts and blue jeans. It was still a cutscene and Joey watched as the demon turned to the other two who had entered. While it did, the other four characters decided to get the hell out of out Dodge. As one, they pelted for the double doors leading to the ballroom, Tea's helping Yugi's and Joey's helping Tristan's. Through the ballroom to the main hall, they ran.

*Ken Setsuna life-force draining,* the game said. *Den Setsuna life-force draining.*

"We're leaving them," Yugi said, sounding upset as they watched the four avatars make for the front door.

"What the hell are we going to do for them?" Tristan asked.

*Player death. Life-force depleted. Ken Setsuna terminated. Soul collection imminent.*

So sudden. Their four hadn't even made the front door of the house.

*Den Setsuna life-force stabilized. Full recovery in five minutes.*

Well, she had escaped, at least for now. Joey watched as the four avatars got out of the house and staggered their way down the road back towards where they'd arrived. They didn't get very far as suddenly the demon leapt off the roof of one of the other houses and squashed Tea's character to the ground. Yugi's went down at the same time as his arm had been around her shoulders. Joey saw out of the corner of his eye the POV of Yugi's character see the demon turn its face to him from inches away.

*Tea Gardner life-force injury,* the game said.

Joey had turned his character to the demon. Not knowing what the hell he was going to do now, he nevertheless attacked with Tristan's. The demon crouched with one foot on Tea's back, crushing her into the dirt.

"Get off her, asshole!" Joey yelled at the TV.

Yugi's character actually reached up and grabbed both of the small, curved bull's horns on the demon's head. He yanked, trying to pull the demon off of Tea's avatar. The demon stood up and then tossed his head, exactly like a bull, throwing Yugi's avatar like a doll down the street. While it was distracted, Tea's avatar's options had allowed her to pull herself out from under it.

"Joey's character says, 'Run for it!'," Yugi reported.

They did, the four of them doing the horror movie trope and splitting up. With the demon in the middle of the street, there wasn't much else they could do. Tea and Yugi's characters ran down the street towards the town's entrance, while Tristan and Joey ran between the nearest houses. They hit the parallel street and ran for the town's entrance from there. Joey wondered if the demon could follow them into the woods. If it could, how were they supposed to survive this game? The demon appeared to have no health bar and none of them had any weapons. What was the secret?

Maybe they just had to Survive until sunrise.

The streets were dark as no house had any lights on and all appeared to be vacant. With their flashlights on, Joey and Tristan ran along the parallel street. Joey expected to be attacked at any moment, but it appeared the demon had singled out either Yugi or Tea, because he heard both of their screams over the headphones. He stopped his character and looked at their screens.

The demon was in front of them, between them and the entrance to the town. It swiped and knocked Tea's character to the ground, then went after Yugi's. Yugi turned his character around and ran, going between the houses on the other side of the street. On this side, there was no parallel street, just the backs of the houses bordered by a split-rail fence. Yugi turned his character towards the front of the town.

"We need to leave the town," he said. "Go out into the woods. Maybe the demon can't follow us."

"That's what I thought," Joey said, as he and Tristan turned their characters back to the original street. Tea had gotten hers to her feet. "But don't count on it."

Outside, in the real world, Joey heard sirens. It sounded like an ambulance. It must have raced right by the Game Shop. He saw Yugi look out towards the windows of the living room with a frown, and his character paid for his distraction. He tripped over what looked like a potted plant and hit the ground. The game announced his injury, but Yugi had walked over to the window and was looking out.

"Yug', what's up? You're gonna get killed if you just lay there."

"What's wrong?" Tea echoed.

"Just…" Yugi trailed off, then abruptly turned back to them and tossed his controller and headphones on the couch next to Tea. "I'll be right back."

He hurried over to his front door and was out of the apartment before the rest of them could object. Joey started to get up, confused.

"What the hell is he doing?" he asked.

*Yugi Moto Life-Force draining*

Joey looked back at the screen and saw Yugi's avatar, still lying at the stoop of the house. The demon had reappeared and was slashing him again and again. Joey cursed and grabbed the controller off the couch and managed to get the avatar to turn over and crawl up the steps to the back door. Tristan arrived and laid into the demon, which turned from Yugi to him. The demon struck Tristan with a sweep of its arm, just like it had done with Joey, which caused Tristan to slam back into the surrounding fence and do a back flip over it into the surrounding field. Meanwhile, Joey had gotten Yugi's character up the steps to the back door, which wasn't locked. When he reached it, for the first time, a new feature appeared. On the screen was a choice A: Escape, B: Return. Thinking Yugi's character was just about a goner, Joey hit A and the character opened the door. Just as the door opened, a cutscene started.

Yugi's character stumbled in, slammed the door shut, and locked it. Then he staggered across the kitchen he'd entered and over to the cabinets and drawers, pulling them open and searching. The house was in generally good condition, but looked abandoned. Dust covered everything, Yugi's character even leaving footprints and smears in it as he searched for a weapon.

The camera changed to Tristan's character, who had gotten up. He faced the demon with the fence between them, and raised his flashlight, which shown right in the demon's face. The demon screeched again and then turned and disappeared into the darkness.

"Did light hurt it?" Tea asked, her own avatar moving forward to Tristan's as he clambered back over the fence.

Words were appearing on the screen. Joey got up to read them, seeing that her character had asked almost the same question she had and Tristan's responded that he didn't know. Joey's own character appeared on his own, asking if they were all right. The three went up the stoop to the backdoor, but found it locked. They banged on it and called at Yugi's character, who didn't respond. Flashes between the two perspectives showed Yugi's character hearing them, but ignoring them while he frantically pulled open every drawer and cabinet and collected an arsenal of knives, a meat fork, and another flashlight. The other three characters carefully went around to the front door, looking everywhere for the demon, which didn't reappear. They entered the house and found Yugi's character in a corner, surrounded by the weapons. What followed was an argument of the other three accusing Yugi of abandoning them and Yugi arguing the demon was targeting him and he took the opportunity to get weapons for them all. He pushed knives out to the other three, but the others were not very forgiving.

Joey's character picked up one of the proffered knives, then waved it at Yugi's and asked if they could count on him. Yugi's character yelled back that he was the one who was all torn up while Joey wasn't even bruised. Tea tried to intervene, stating their enemy was the demon, not each other. Tristan picked up another knife and said they needed to get out of there. Yugi's character refused, pointing over his head to where a giant cross decoration was affixed to the wall and said the demon would get him if he left the house, but he was safe there.

The real Yugi then came back into the apartment, and his face was white. Joey forgot all about the dialogue still running on the screen as he, Tristan, and Tea got up and surrounded him, asking him what was wrong.

"I just ran over to the next block," he said. "Because I kept thinking that Den and Ken Setsuna sounded familiar. They're a pair of twins that live in an apartment attached to their family's bakery."

"Small world," Joey said.

"When I got to the bakery, the ambulance we heard was out front." Yugi raised his gaze, and his eyes were huge. "Ken Setsuna is dead and his sister is screaming a demon did it."

tbc...


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four:

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Tristan asked. He pulled off his headphones. He hadn't heard Yugi right, he hadn't.

But Yugi repeated himself. "There was a crowd out front. There's a bar next door to the bakery and the patrons heard screaming. They called the cops and the ambulance. The bakery was being cordoned off by the police when I got there, but I asked one of the patrons and he said they'd come out and Den was outside, screaming that a demon had her brother. The guy was one of the patrons who went into the house and found Ken lying in the kitchen, all…all torn to pieces."

"This has to be a joke," Joey said weakly, even though all of them knew Yugi would never make a joke like this.

Yugi suddenly went over to the game console and hit the reset button. The screen went dark. He then pushed the slot for the disc.

It didn't open.

The picture came back on.

There was a few seconds of silence, then Yugi turned the power off of the console completely. And they all watched as the picture came back on the TV.

"Oh, shit," Tristan whispered.

Joey lunged across the living room and pulled the power cables for the TV and the console. The screen went dark for a minute, then came back on. They all gathered in the middle of the living room and watched as the cutscene continued unabated, showing Joey's, Tristan's, and Tea's characters walking down the main street in a knot, all holding two knives each, while the camera occasionally went back to Yugi's character, which showed him still in the kitchen of the house, pulling the cross decoration down and then sitting back on the floor and hugging the cross to him with one hand, the other brandishing a long chef's knife.

*Arcanum Activate. Too late to escape.*

They all looked at each other with wide eyes.

The words were coming from nowhere. None of them had their headsets on.

*Infernum vocat te. Et advenit daemon*

"What…What does that mean?" Tea asked in a trembling voice.

*Non potes effugere. Et non morieris*

"What the hell is this?!" Tristan cried.

"Sorry, Yug'," Joey said.

He then grabbed up the console and ran into the kitchen. Tristan heard him slam it into the floor, then it sounded like he stomped on it several times.

*Perficere ludum. Et vos fortasse vivet.*

"That didn't do anything," Yugi said as they watched the screen finish the cutscene and the four avatars awaited direction.

Joey came slowly back into the living room. They all watched the screen awaiting their input. After a minute, Tristan's character said they couldn't just stand there, they'd die. And from nowhere came the sound of the demon's growling.

"What do we do, what do we do?" Tea whimpered.

*Den Setsuna life-force draining. Flee. Flee. Flee.*

The demon had gone back for Den's avatar, presumably still in the house.

"We have to win," Yugi said, grabbing his controller up from the floor. "Think of it like a Shadow Game. We have to win."

Tristan reluctantly took his own, while Joey and Tea did the same.

"But how are we supposed to win?" Tristan asked. "There's no instructions, no clues."

"That room in the house," Joey said. "The locked door. That has to be it."

"But how do we get there? The demon's in there. What do we open it with?"

"I don't know."

*Player death. Life-force depleted. Den Setsuna terminated. Soul collection imminent.*

Yugi suddenly turned to them with wide eyes. "When that happened before, Ken died. Now Den's character is dead. And before that, Kaiba."

"You think Kaiba is going to die in real life?" Tristan asked.

Yugi nodded. He hurried over to the couch and grabbed up Tea's cell phone, then rapidly typed. "Come on, Kaiba Corp number, come on."

The web service must have found it because he hit a button and raised the phone to his ear. But after a couple minutes, he lowered it. "No answer."

"Kaiba must be at home," Joey said.

"We have to get him," Yugi said, putting the cell phone and his controller down.

The demon's growling started. They all turned to the TV and watched as the demon appeared at the end of the street closest to the great house, walking slowly toward them like it had all the time in the world, no longer in a hurry.

"If we leave, it'll get our avatars," Tea said.

The demon ran at them. Joey, Tristan, and Tea turned tail and ran for it. Despite the fact that Yugi's console was so much trash on the kitchen floor, the game responded the same as always. They ran, but the demon was faster. It covered the ground between them in seconds.

"Take this!" Joey said, turning his avatar around and slashing with both knives.

The demon pivoted, dodging, then threw Joey into the wall of a house. Tristan had reluctantly turned as well and he was able to put his knives into the demon's back as it was it distracted by Joey. The demon roared, but Tristan managed to evade it as it turned to him. Tea then stabbed it and it screeched again, but did not go down.

"These knives aren't working," Tea said as the demon knocked her avatar to the ground.

Joey had gotten up and staggered over. He added his own knives to the collection in the demon and it was true, it had no effect.

"We have to get back to that big house," Joey said. "And figure out how to open that door."

The demon swatted Joey's character across the road again. By that time, it was obvious they couldn't fight it. They all ran, in different directions, and the demon stood in the street and seemed to be debating on who to go after.

Meanwhile, the real Yugi had been ignoring his character, who was still sitting on the floor of the kitchen, hugging the cross and staring into space. He was back on Tea's cell, searching for something. Finally, he made a frustrated noise and put the cell phone down.

"I can't find Kaiba's home number. It's probably unlisted. I'm going to head out there."

"How?" Joey asked as he ran his character around a house and then headed back towards the big manor house along the backyards. "Kaiba lives on the other side of town."

"And if you leave, that demon will get your avatar," Tristan added, pelting towards the manor house down the main street.

Tea had headed back towards the house where Yugi's character was. She went through the front door and into the kitchen where Yugi's character was sitting.

"Do you think the cross would work?" Tea asked. "If we hit the demon with that?"

"We can't leave Kaiba to die," Yugi said. He turned to Joey. "We can't."

"If that demon is real, how are we going to stop it?" Tristan asked.

Yugi made a helpless gesture. "Joey, please, we have to help him. What can we do?"

Joey looked down at him, pausing his avatar while he did, which was at the end of the line of houses across from the cemetery. The avatar stood in the backyard of one of the houses, swaying back and forth. Text running at the bottom appeared to be the avatar asking himself out loud why he had stopped.

"If we do go, how are we going to keep our avatars safe?" Tristan asked.

"Only one of us needs to go," Joey said, keeping an eye on the screen as he talked. "The rest of you just keep my avatar safe."

"You can't go alone," Tristan said. "What if that demon's at Kaiba's mansion?"

"Hang on," Yugi said. "Watch my avatar."

He ran off, to the short stairwell that led to the game shop, and out of sight. The other three stood tensely in the living room, watching. The demon was nowhere in sight. Tristan didn't like to think that possibly it was with Den right now.

Yugi made a hell of a lot of noise downstairs for several minutes before he came running back up and then into the kitchen, where he made even more noise. As the others stood bemused, he came back in, holding an armful of things.

"I don't know if any of this stuff will help, but…" He dumped it on the couch and started sorting the items. "These are silver." He separated a pair of ornate-looking old daggers in cracking leather sheaths. "And so are these." Four beaded broad collars of differing thicknesses, an arm cuff, some rings, and a pair of earrings. "This is a symbol of protection from evil." An armband that looked like a knotted rope to Tristan. "And of course these." What looked like two wooden Catholic crucifixes, a rare thing to find in Japan.

"What are we going to do, arm ourselves in this stuff, then go like the cavalry to Kaiba's?" Joey asked.

"That's exactly what I'm doing," Yugi said.

"Yug', you can't go. What if the demon-"

"If the demon's there, are we just going to let it kill him?"

"If it is there, how are we going to stop it?"

They all looked at the TV. There had been no further appearances by the demon. Yugi's avatar remained sitting in the kitchen, holding the crucifix like a teddy bear while the other three stood in the street midway between the manor house and the entrance to the forest.

Which could mean it was with Den.

Or with Kaiba.

"I'm going," Yugi said.

"No," Joey said. "I'll go."

"Joey-"

"I'll go. Kaiba won't listen to you, Yug', you know that. And he won't listen to me either, but I won't hesitate to clean his clock and bring him back here unconscious if I have to."

"What do we even do if we do get to him?" Tristan asked.

"We have to win the game," Yugi said.

"Then you play," Joey said. "You win every game. So you win this one while I go get Moneybags."

"And what about Den?" Tea asked.

"She's probably with cops and doctors and stuff. If they can't-"

"They can't," Yugi said. "I have a real feeling they can't."

"Someone should go get her," Tea said. "We can't just leave her either!"

"She's less likely to come with one of us than Rich Boy."

"Well, we have to try!"

"Split up?" Tristan said. "Yeah, that always works out."

"Our avatars are still alive," Joey pointed out. "The demon can't touch us. Er, I think. We'll go get Kaiba and Den and cover them in all this silver shit and bring them back. Or we'll try to anyway. Meanwhile, Yug and Tea'll put their heads together and figure out a way to win that game. Come on, T."

Joey started stuffing his pockets with the silver trinkets. Tristan reluctantly did the same. He was terrified. Freaky magic happened every time whenever Yugi started playing a game.

Maybe Tristan would consider no longer inviting Yugi to play any new game.

But Joey was going on a rescue mission and Tristan was not letting him go alone. It was better Yugi and Tea did stay behind and try to win the game, because for every time Yugi inadvertently unleashed some black magic while playing games, he also always beat that magic and the game. Hopefully, this would be the same.

He and Joey each took a dagger and headed for the door. Tea followed while Yugi sat on the floor, all four controllers allayed out in front of him, ready for him to grab up the instant the demon started trying to go for one of their avatars, his headphones on his head. His face was grim.

"You're not coming with us," Joey said when he, Tea, and Tristan had reached the sidewalk out in front of the Kame Game Shop. "You need to stay and help Yug' figure out that game."

"How are you going to get to Kaiba's?" Tea asked. "In a hurry?"

Joey glanced at Tristan, then sighed. "Have you got a couple bobby pins, Tea?"

"Um, yeah?" Tea reached up and tugged them out of her hair, letting her bangs fall flatter.

Joey took them and walked a few paces over to a car parked on the street. "Keep this between us, okay?"

He bent the straight arm of one of the bobby pins, then bit the rubber off with his teeth. He bent the wavy part around into a hook, then stuck the straight end into the door lock and bent it a little. Taking the other pin, he jammed it into the bottom of the door lock, then wiggled the upper one. After a minute, the door lock turned.

"What-?" Tea started.

Joey opened the car door and tugged the pins out. He settled himself into the driver seat, then bent down and reached under the dash for the wires. A couple quick cuts with the silver knife Yugi had given them and a bare wire touch and the car's engine turned over.

"Don't ask," Tristan said to a bewildered Tea.

Tristan got into the passenger seat as Joey shut his door and put the car in gear.

They were headed to Kaiba's.

A/N: I'm sorry it slow-going. I really hope some people are enjoying this story. I only know about opening car doors and hot-wiring from movies and Youtube, so sorry if something is unrealistic. Although, it is a fanfic about a cartoon about magic and Egyptian monsters. :)


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